Hurricane
by Nightfawkes
Summary: Loving John Casey is like loving a storm.


HURRICANE

Loving John Casey, he muses, is like loving a storm.

Chuck leans against his wall, and watches nature rage outside his windows. The drumming of the rain on the roof slowly and inexorably drowns out all other sound, drawing a curtain between him and the world. The staccato rhythm both soothes him and makes him restless, like a low itch just under his skin, but he doesn't mind. It's a comfortable, familiar sort of yearning. With all the power in the neighborhood out, he feels both cocooned and terribly exposed. Outside, a white-blue sheen of lightning lances across the sky, and the whip-lash crack of thunder that follows brings a chill to the base of Chuck's spine.

There is nothing between him and the night but the dubious protection of glass, and that's the sort of protection that's just as likely to turn into its own sort of lethal, should it be struck in the right way. As Chuck holds his hand up to the window, he can feel a creeping chill. The storm outside has found a way through, as if to mock him for thinking that this thin sheet of silica and carbonate is any sort of deterrent to the cold. Chuck presses a gentle finger to the window, and watches. As the heat of his skin meets the cold indifference of the glass, an outline begins to form around his fingertip. He pulls his hand away, but the outline remains. Like the ghost of a touch, it lingers. It seems to say to him, Soon I will fade, and you will no longer think on the moment of time we touched. But our brief contact has forever altered us both. Though you may not see it, the mark is still there.

A storm, Chuck thinks, is so very many things. He slides his hands into his pockets, and stares out into the dark.

Perhaps the first thing that comes to mind is violence. Grace and brutality. An innate chaos that is as frightening as it is compelling, as beautiful as it is dangerous. Unleashed, it strikes everything in its path. No prejudice, and no mercy. Unpredictable and wholly wild as only a thing of nature can be. Yet even a storm has rules, laws of behavior it must follow, or cease to be itself. Laws that seem unfathomable to those left ravaged in its wake.

But for all of that, the allure of a storm is a thing to be reckoned with. The attraction it holds is undeniable, pulling one in even against his instincts for self-preservation. Like a mouse caught in the unblinking gaze of a snake, unable to look away from the terror and seduction and finality of it all. There are no half-ways in loving a storm. If you choose to leave the shelter where you hide, then don't fool yourself into thinking you can duck back inside whenever you'd like. It simply won't do you any good. As soon as you open that door, and walk into the maelstrom, you are lost. You have no choice but to stand there, your heart on your sleeve and your soul in your eyes, and let the storm have you. It washes over you, through and around you, lashing, caressing, buffeting, cleansing, and consuming you. You brace yourself for destruction, for willing sacrifice to this entity so much greater than yourself. But instead you find you are cradled, protected at its center, even as it lays waste to all around you. You have been spared. And when the dawn comes and the skies clear, it will be as if the storm were never there. Only in the scent of the earth, and the touch of a breeze on your skin, will its memory make its presence felt. It is gone, but it has left itself behind, etched into every beat of your heart.

When the next too-bright arc of lightning flashes, Chuck is not as surprised as he should be to find Casey standing, quiet and still, outside his window. The man's dark hair is plastered to his skull, and the water runs in ceaseless rivulets, caressing its way down the planes of his face and throat. His simple black t-shirt is soaked through, clinging to his chest and shoulders, throwing the strong curves of his arms into sharp relief against the blurred background of the courtyard. He disregards the rain that lashes down, comfortable with the fury that surrounds him in a wholly unsettling way.

In the after-image of the lightning, Chuck is left with the impression of those too-blue eyes as they caught his own in the split-second of illumination. Watching. Judging. Demanding. Pleading. There's so much, Chuck thinks. There's always so damn much in the tempestuousness of John Casey, and Chuck can never quite keep up. The low roll of thunder in the distance seems to sink into Chuck's bones.

He should go to bed. He should pull the blankets up over his head, turn on a flashlight under the covers, read a comic, and pretend he's safe. It worked when he was ten, after all. The storm can batten and sate its fury without him for the night. Chuck's just a man. A man who is playing with forces he does not understand, and can never hope to control. This will all end in madness. He breathes in. He breathes out. He touches the chill rigidity of the glass, and watches as his finger leaves a mark.

Then again, what man has ever been so lucky as to say that a storm has loved him back?

Chuck throws the window open wide, and welcomes in the storm-torn night.

**The End**


End file.
